Paid search
Google Ads Management
Google Ads puts you at the top of search results today, not in six months. We build and manage the campaigns, cut the spend that isn't converting, and report on cost per lead — not clicks, not impressions.
Management is a flat $350 a month for ad budgets up to about $3,000, then10–15% of spend above that. You keep ownership of your ad account.
What Google Ads management includes
Running a Google Ads account well is mostly a discipline problem, not a creativity problem. The money leaks in small, boring places.
- Account audit
- Before we change anything, we look at what's running, what it's spending, and what it's returning. If you've got an existing account, this usually surfaces a few thousand dollars a year in obvious waste.
- Campaign and ad group structure
- Tightly themed ad groups so your ads match what people actually typed. Sprawling groups are the most common reason click-through rates stay low and costs stay high.
- Keyword and negative keyword management
- Negative keywords are where the savings live. Every account we take over is paying for searches it should never have appeared in — job seekers, students, competitors, people looking for free versions of what you sell. We prune continuously.
- Ad copy and testing
- Multiple variants per ad group, tested against each other, with the losers retired. This is ongoing, not a launch task.
- Landing page alignment
- The fastest way to waste ad spend is to send everyone to your homepage. Ads should land on a page that answers the specific search.
- Conversion tracking
- Set up properly, so we can tell which campaigns produce calls and form fills rather than guessing from clicks. Most accounts we inherit either have no tracking or have it counting the wrong things.
- Monthly reporting
- Spend, leads, cost per lead, and what we changed. Written so you can read it without a call.
Google Ads, AdWords, PPC — the same thing
Google renamed AdWords to Google Ads in 2018, but plenty of people still search for AdWords management, and PPC — pay-per-click — is the broader industry term for the same model: you pay when someone clicks.
If you came here looking for an AdWords agency or a PPC management company, you're in the right place. Nothing about the work changed when the name did.
What has changed is how much of the system is automated. Smart bidding, broad match, and Performance Max now make decisions that used to be manual. That shifts the job rather than removing it — the leverage is now in feeding the machine good conversion data, constraining it with negatives, and knowing when its recommendations are quietly optimizing for Google's revenue rather than yours.
You keep your ad account
Your Google Ads account is yours. We work inside it, we don't hold it.
This sounds like a small thing until you try to leave an agency that set up the account under their own manager account with you as a guest. You lose the history, the conversion data, the learning period, and the audiences — and you start from zero somewhere else.
We set up or migrate the account under your ownership, add ourselves as managers, and if we part ways we remove our access and you keep everything. Same for conversion tracking, audiences, and creative.
Ask any agency you're considering whether you'll own the account. The answer is informative either way.
What this actually costs
We publish flat management fees rather than charging a percentage of your ad spend, and there's a reason: a percentage fee means your agency earns more when you spend more. That's a bad incentive to build a relationship on.
| What it costs | |
|---|---|
| Management fee | $350/mo flat |
| Ad budgets up to | about $3,000/mo |
| Above that ceiling | 10–15% of ad spend |
| One-time setup | $500 |
| Ad spend | Paid directly to Google. We never mark it up. |
Management covers competitor research, A/B testing, landing page implementation, and a monthly report plus review meeting.
Ad spend goes directly to Google. It never passes through us and we take no cut of it.
The obvious objection, answered: at the entry tier, our fee is roughly the same as your ad budget. That looks wrong, and it's worth explaining rather than hiding.
A $400/month account takes about the same work to run properly as a $4,000/month account — same structure, same negative keyword pruning, same ad testing, same reporting. Agencies that charge 15% of spend simply refuse accounts this size, because 15% of $400 doesn't cover the hours. We'd rather serve smaller businesses at an honest flat rate than pretend the work scales down.
That said, here's the honest version: if your ad budget is under a few hundred a month, paid search may not be your best first move. At that level you're buying a handful of clicks. Local SEO often produces more for the same money. We'll tell you that on the call if it's true for you.
When Google Ads is the right answer
Use paid search when you need leads this month, you're launching something new with no organic footprint, you're testing whether a market or message works before investing in content, or you're in a seasonal business with a narrow window.
Don't use it when your website doesn't convert the traffic you already have — fix that first, or you're paying to send people to a leaky page. Also skip it if your margins can't absorb the cost per lead in your category. Some verticals run $40 or more per click, and that math has to work before anything else does.
Most of our clients run paid and organic together: ads produce leads now, SEO lowers the cost of leads over time. Neither replaces the other.
Google Ads for regulated industries
Some industries can't simply switch ads on.
Addiction treatment providers must hold LegitScript certification before Google will run their ads in the US. Not a best practice — a hard gate. No campaign structure gets around it, and agencies unfamiliar with the vertical routinely build accounts that can never serve.
Healthcare advertisers face restrictions on claims, condition targeting, and remarketing, plus the separate problem of tracking pixels on pages that may transmit protected health information.
We work in both. If you're in one of these categories, start here:
Our process
- 1Audit and access. We review any existing account, confirm you own it, and fix conversion tracking before spending a dollar.
- 2Research and plan. Keywords, competitors, realistic cost per click, and a budget recommendation with an expected cost per lead. In writing, before we build.
- 3Build. Campaign structure, ad groups, ad copy, negatives, extensions, landing page recommendations.
- 4Manage. Search term review, negative keyword pruning, bid and budget adjustments, ad testing. Ongoing, not set-and-forget.
- 5Report. Monthly: spend, leads, cost per lead, what changed, what's next.
Frequently asked questions
- What is PPC management?
- PPC management is the ongoing work of running pay-per-click advertising campaigns — building campaign structure, researching keywords, writing and testing ads, adding negative keywords, adjusting bids and budgets, and tracking conversions. It covers Google Ads and other paid platforms.
- What is a PPC agency?
- A PPC agency builds and manages paid advertising campaigns on your behalf, typically on Google Ads and Microsoft Ads. They handle keyword research, ad copy, bidding, and reporting. Most charge either a flat monthly fee or a percentage of your ad spend.
- How much do Google Ads cost?
- Two separate costs. Ad spend is what you pay Google per click, varying enormously by industry — from under a dollar to $40 or more in competitive categories. Management is what you pay an agency to run it. Ours is a flat $350 a month for ad budgets up to about $3,000, then 10–15% of spend above that, plus a one-time $500 setup.
- How much does PPC management cost?
- Agencies typically charge either a flat fee, commonly $300–$1,500/month for small businesses, or 10–20% of ad spend. We charge a flat $350 a month up to about $3,000 of ad budget, because a percentage fee rewards an agency for telling you to spend more. Above that ceiling we move to 10–15% of spend.
- Do you charge a percentage of my ad spend?
- No. Our fee is flat regardless of what you spend, and your ad budget goes directly to Google without passing through us. We don't earn more when you spend more.
- Who owns the ad account?
- You do. We set it up or migrate it under your ownership and add ourselves as managers. If we stop working together, we remove our access and you keep the account, its history, conversion data, and audiences.
- What is ad spend?
- Ad spend is the money paid directly to the advertising platform for clicks or impressions — separate from any management fee. If you spend $500 with Google and pay an agency $400 to manage it, your ad spend is $500 and your total cost is $900.
- How do I decide how much to spend on ads?
- Work backwards from a customer. Estimate your average cost per click, how many clicks it takes to get a lead, and how many leads it takes to close one customer. That gives you a cost per customer. If that number is comfortably below what a customer is worth to you, scale up. If not, fix conversion first.
- What is return on ad spend?
- Return on ad spend, or ROAS, is revenue divided by ad spend. Spend $1,000 and generate $4,000 in revenue and your ROAS is 4:1, often written as 400%. Unlike profit-based measures, it ignores your costs — so a strong ROAS can still lose money on thin margins.
- What is a good return on ad spend?
- It depends entirely on your margins. 4:1 is a common rule of thumb, but a business with 20% margins needs far more than one with 80% margins to break even. Calculate your own break-even ROAS before adopting anyone's benchmark.
- How long before Google Ads works?
- Ads can generate clicks the day they launch, but the first few weeks are a learning period while Google's bidding gathers conversion data. Expect 30–60 days before performance stabilizes and cost per lead becomes meaningful. Judging an account in week two produces bad decisions.
- Do you require a contract?
- Google Ads management has a three-month minimum. The first few weeks are a learning period while Google's bidding gathers conversion data, so a one-month engagement would be judged entirely on the least representative part of it. You own the ad account throughout, and you keep it if we part ways.
- Should I do Google Ads or SEO?
- Both, if you can. Ads produce leads immediately and stop the day you stop paying. SEO takes months and compounds. If you need customers this quarter, start with ads. If you're building something durable, run SEO alongside so your cost per lead falls over time.
Let's look at your numbers
Send us your current account — or your budget if you don't have one yet — and we'll tell you what's realistic in your market before you commit to anything. If paid search isn't the right first move for you, we'll say so.